30 thirty men and women of all ages sat quietly in a semicircle facIng a panel of five Half of the men wore beards- not full, unpruned hippy beards, not pa triarchal Khomeini beards, not stiff, trim psychiatrist beards, but tentative, fringelike divinity-student beards. Car- ol Jensen, the national director of the Human Security Program of Clergy and Laity Concerned) which is a na- tional network of people concerned with disarmament, hunger, human rights, and Vietnam, opened the dis- cussion by invIting comments from the floor. A few were as follows: A young pastor of a small rural con- gregation: "I would like to raise the question of how activism can be made consistent with the spirit of common devotion and religious community. How can you oppose the arms race and support peace while preserving peace in the churches-both locally and throughout the world?" A h " I ' . s y young woman: m Inter- ested in discussing the contemplative basis for social action, and how we can preserve the contemplative dimension and not get burned out in social ac- .. " tI Vlsm. A young Oriental woman: "I'm worried about self-righteousness. We may be convinced that our opposition to the arms race is based in faith, but how can we keep that crucial sense of humility about our convictions?" Some of the ad vice from the panel was as follows: Bill P rice, a solemn-faced man in a dark suit, who is the coördinator of World Peacemakers, an organization that encourages the formation of small groups within churches and synagogues to try to end the arms race by com- bining politics with faith: "In trying to move from belief to action, we have found it possible to put together groups of two to twelve who covenant togeth- er and are able to value the growth of the spirit while also obeying the call to action There is hoth an in\vard and an outward dimension. This work has grown out of the missionary experi- ence. " Alice Wimer, a self-confident-Iook- ing woman who is the international- affairs executive of the National Coun- cil of Churches: "I'd like to talk about the connection between the fear of nu- clear weapons and one's faith in God, which may seem contradictory. How many here have faced an illness that drew you near death? " A few hands were raised. "My experience is that people who have faced death feel a new freedom in their actions and are likely to take more chances. They have really had to live in the Lord and not in the world. They overcome fear with faith. And isn't that what Christìanity is all about-faith in the Lord? But how do you maintain community while ad- vancing a cause I've found that peo- ple work for people more than for is- sues. And they give money to people more than to issues." Charles Simonson, a pleasant-look- ing, rosy-cheeked man with a ginger beard, who IS a pastor of the Ridge- view Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, in White Plains: "There is a deep danger of seeing 'the people' as the enemy. I'm very bothered when we regard the people as trapped or rigid. We must always approach our friends as fellows who will give us a hearing. The facts about the arms race can be presented with a little con viction-a little passion-but people must have a chance to respond: to tell you that your concerns are not theirs. When it comes to associations of the clergy, the need is just as great. These are based entirely on fellowship and are extremely fragile. The mem- bers will avoid controversy with in- credible alacrity. I do not think that a11 of my parishioners have to agree with me. We are all instruments of grace, and all have our parts to play in God's design. " We next stopped in at the "Direct Action" workshop, where a discussion of the suitability of various legal and extralegal tactics was in progress. In the middle of it, a small, gray-haired woman stood up and said, "I'm an old lady. I'm a liberal old lady. This is a young man" -she put her hand on the shoulder of a young man just in front of her-"and I have children his age, and also grandchildren. I want them to have a chance to live out their lives. But we've shut the door in their face This con vocation gives me hope, because there are people here who are willing to give their lives so that the lives of these new generations can be d " save . The H urltng H URLING, which has been the national sport of Ireland since legendary times and today draws crowds of seventy thousand to Dublin's Croke Park, is to American eyes lIke a soccer game played at ice-hockey speed with a lightweight, lumpy baseball and thirty bats that are a cross between a stocking stretcher, a putter, a furled umbrella, and a whacking great walk- ing stick. When you watch hurling, your eyes move back and forth and up and down faster than at a tennIS match; the ball is in the air as much as it is on the ground, and play moves from end to end of a field longer than a football field with the suddenness of a fast break in a basketball game. The sounds you hear are what the Irish call the clash of the ash-one hurling stick, or hurley, knocking against another. It is the fastest outdoor game played on foot in the world, and to be good at it you need to have the balance of some- one who could win an egg-and-spoon race on the White House lawn, the speed of a spnnter, the stamina of a marathoner, the high spirits of a cheer- leader, the lightning-quick wrists of a squash champion, and the nonchalance of a fungo batter. The game requires enough skill to make you wonder, when you see it for the first time, why you have never heard of it before, why it has not caught on outside Ireland. Here in New York, at Gaelic Park, a relaxed, carefree, and rickety little old stadIum at Broadway and 240th Street, in the Bronx-a stadium that has a Curner & I ves feeling about it and that most New Yorkers have nev- er heard of (a city planner catching sight of it for the first time would probably feel a bit woozy and ask for a glass of water and want to sit down)-there is one hurling match a week, on Sundays, beginning the week after St. Patrick's Day and lasting un- til the middle of November, but the players are almost all expatriate Irish- men. Once a year at Gaelic Park, there is a Sunday hurling match wIth glimpses of greatness and moments of real incandescence, between the Irish championship team of the year and a team of All-Stars drawn from the oth- er top Irish teams-the best of the rest. These are the finest hurlers in the world, the superstars of the sport. The game is an exhibition match, a friendly get-together, with nothing at stake, so the intensity of a champion- ship match is missing. And the pitch, as a hurling field is called, has a big bald patch of packed-down dirt and is short- er and narrower than the grass car- pet at Croke Park. And the hurlers are In a larky mood: hurling is a stnct- ly amateur sport, and the American tour, which is sponsored by the Bank of Ireland-after the New York